


Earth Hard As Iron

by bornof_sorrow (wintersfire)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Explicit Language, F/M, Love, Love Triangles, Morning After, Morning Sex, Multi, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4350152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersfire/pseuds/bornof_sorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy thinks about Grace and May. Takes place series 2, between episodes 5 and 6. Title from Tommy's favourite poem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth Hard As Iron

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd. After watching S2 ep5 Tommy took up residence in my head. He may never leave...

Tommy drove along the country lanes of the Peak District heading back to Birmingham and thought about May and Grace. The roads were empty except for the occasional labourer or cart and the sun was reaching over the hedgerows seeing off the early morning mist which lingered in the corner of fields and under trees not yet touched by the pallid warmth of the sun. He loved this time of morning. 

Before France, on canal or horse he’d enjoyed the fresh calm of days like this, sentiment adding sweet resonance to his excitement in being alive and young and outside. Feelings like that had been a part of the mix of reasons he’d volunteered, thinking of the things that king and country meant to him. That had long since been knocked out of him of course. 

Enjoyment of such mornings now came from the quiet solitude, and the sharper awareness of beauty that grew from his endurance of so much that was grim and desperate. These thoughts drifted across the back of his mind, he gave little attention to them although he was aware of them as he was aware of everything around him. He couldn’t shake that off either, he could never truly relax; he would always be watching for the next attack like he’d been in the trenches. Not a bad thing necessarily.

But the forefront of his mind was occupied with the two women. He loved Grace and it could never work. He liked May and it could never work. He might be dead any minute; might live to have to decide between them.

He shifted in the seat, one wrist steering the wheel as he smoked, the familiar fumes burning hot in his lungs. He smoked idly although he’d often dreamed of a cigarette when cold and wet in the mud, and still could not quite believe the luxury of a pack whenever he wanted one. His mind’s eye saw Grace, spread against the red velvet of the couch, slender and naked, bared but hot and demanding, wanting everything that made him him. She knew the worst of him, had seen it with her own eyes and not looked away. After that he could never look at her again without a surge of elation, even when his half-dead heart broke again. It made no sense that he felt like that when at the same time she had betrayed him utterly. It made no sense at all, but he knew that it didn’t matter. She had seen and she could not turn away from him any more than he could her, although she was married to another man and lived an ocean away.

When he was wrapped up in Grace, had her in his arms, he felt like the man he might have been even though all he had to do to please her was be Tommy, just as he was. He wasn’t being romantic; there was viciousness in him which was mirrored in Grace and together they could take on the world, two heads, two lives, one heart. But Grace was right, it was too late for that; their paths were different now. But holy fuck, when he was in Grace, pushing right inside with everything he had, he was alive, set-the-place-on-fire, kick- the-bastards-in, risk-everything-on-one-throw alive. A man could die to feel like that. He probably would.

But the bit of him that was always watching and weighing things up, calculating the odds, that bit of him relished sinking into May, relished feeling her claw at him and sob around him. Inside her he felt like a king; every toff bastard who had looked at him like the gypsy he was could shove their privilege and their power up their arse. May was everything he shouldn’t be able to reach: rich, classy, educated, and born to be served; so every time he did touch her it thrilled him, made him want to shout in triumph. But to be fair to May, swaggering about the powers of his cock wasn’t all there was to it, not by a long way.

He admired her brutal honesty and determination. She was strong – not unlike Poll in that way, and in the softness and love inside. He wasn’t the right man for that love - they both knew it- but neither of them understood any more how to be whole enough for that kind of love to work. And she wanted him. In her own way she made it very plain she wanted him, and at no little cost to herself if he believed what she said about maids and the tattle of her class, and he did believe her. That bloody war had shook everything up and turned everything inside out; no-one knew how things were supposed to work anymore, but still, she was brave and honest enough to fight for what she wanted and God knows he loved a good fight.

Grace now, she wanted to take up all the space inside his head and his soul. So she stared into his eyes when he slept with her and wanted to know what he thought, what he felt, dragging everything out to be examined between them. Being unguarded and open to her was sweet relief and he craved it like he’d craved the pipe, but it was more perilous. Campbell would destroy her out of spite and grief if he could. Grace being near Tommy meant he could, very easily. So maybe he’d have to close the door on it, and remember, sometimes.

Tommy slowed down when he spotted a garage. The lad ran out to the Bugatti and Tommy paced slowly on the dirt path while he filled her up, lighting another cigarette. He lifted his face to the sun and watched the light shift behind his eyelids. He remembered the fierceness of May’s desire the night before, how her thighs had trembled around his head as he held her open and gave her what she needed, how she had bit at his shoulders and neck, tearing passion out of him to fill up their loneliness. How she had pulled him, half-dressed, back to her bed in the cool dawn and wrapped her soft mouth around his cock. What had she said? She’d win him in the end.

A dirty fighter. He liked that. 

Grace fought dirty too. She didn’t need to carry a gun to play him.

Tommy flicked the stub away and climbed back into the car. He had business to attend to.


End file.
